Why is enlightenment a mystery?

[Karl]

Contemplating the question 'who am I' has nought to do with that. 

It instigates and motivates internal shifts, something that you have missed addressing by making allusions to examples of an external nature.

 

Navel gazing you mean ;-) Done that, wrote a book about it. We can convince ourselves of just about anything if we are dedicated enough-I did. Yet there is always an irksome little something, like a stone in your shoe. You can try and ignore it, you can pretend the pain is something else but pain, but every so often it gives you a sharp kind of agony that wakes you up. Eventually you are forced to stop, take off the shoe and deal with it, or limp along for the rest of the journey.

[Brian]

We are talking about different things. I have no willingness to allow things to be as they are, things are either absolutes or they are not. Things that I can change I must be willing to change and have the capacity to alter. I know the atom can be split, but I am incapable-at present, and unwilling to apply the effort required to affect the action. However I can and do obtain and prepare food for my consumption. I cannot alter gravity, but I can utilise gravity to obtain values I desire. If I fall from my bike I would wish to annul gravity, but as I cannot, then I wear protective clothing, maintain the motorcycle and ride skilfully. Without gravity a motorcycle would be completely useless.

You won't understand this response because you spend your energy reinforcing your blinders rather than dissolving them but you actually illustrate your own misunderstanding in this post. I'll just pick the more easily demonstrated for the benefit of the readers of this thread.

 

You state that you "cannot alter gravity" but you do precisely that at every moment and with every particle of your being merely by your presence. This has been understood for hundreds of years and quantitatively documented (it is quite measurable) since the 18th century yet you live in denial of this (as well as many other verifiable aspects of reality, some of which I've pointed out before) because it is at odds with your conception of reality.

 

Every particle in the universe (including every particle in your body) manifests a gravitational field and every particle interacts dynamically with the gravitational fields of every other particle. As particles move in relation to each other, the gravitational field each experience changes -- a constantly changing mélange of overlapping fields rippling through the universe at the speed of light like the ripples on a pond in the rain. This holds true for dust motes, for men riding motorcycles on the surface of the earth, for the thousands (millions?) of rocky and gaseous bodies dancing with each other which we call the solar system, and for the billions of galaxies linked in an ever-changing gravitational net over incomprehensible reaches of space-time.

 

That you would use such a profound misunderstanding as a cornerstone of your argument for how simple it is to answer the question "who am I?" is really quite amusing.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Brian

[blue eyed snake]

Every particle in the universe (including every particle in your body) manifests a gravitational field and every particle interacts dynamically with the gravitational fields of every other particle. As particles move in relation to each other, the gravitational field each experience changes -- a constantly changing mélange of overlapping fields rippling through the universe at the speed of light like the ripples on a pond in the rain. This holds true for dust motes, for men riding motorcycles on the surface of the earth, for the thousands (millions?) of rocky and gaseous bodies dancing with each other which we call the solar system, and for the billions of galaxies linked in an ever-changing gravitational net over incomprehensible reaches of space-time.

 

 

well, I did sort of know that, but the suggestion that we can ' alter' gravity was not linked to that notion.

 

eh, does this suggest that, theoretically (in the theory of modern science I mean) this

 

is possible?

 

( even when not, it's a cute picture  )

[Brian]

well, I did sort of know that, but the suggestion that we can ' alter' gravity was not linked to that notion.

 

eh, does this suggest that, theoretically (in the theory of modern science I mean) this

 

is possible?

 

( even when not, it's a cute picture  )

If I raise my arms over my head instead of holding them at my side, I am altering the gravitation field you experience -- regardless of whether you can feel the change. If I climb on a ladder, I am altering the gravitational field I experience, as well as the gravitational field the Earth experiences. If I dig a hole, I am also altering gravity. If I swing on a swing, I am constantly altering gravity. To keep things simple (and for practical purposes, since these levels of alteration are generally insignificant), we treat gravity as a steady field on the surface of the Earth but that is, in fact, not the case.

 

As an example, we currently use pairs of satellites to map the planet by measuring the distance between them as they orbit -- as gravity changes, one will speed up or slow down (depending on whether gravity increases or decreases) so the distance between them increases or decreases, and then the other will enter that area and will also speed up or slow down. The distance between the satellites are in constant flux because the gravity they experience is continually changing, and this can be used to measure the planet far below with greater precision than has ever been done -- because gravity is really not a constant.

 

We generally speak of a fixed "gravitational constant" -- of the law of gravity being precisely the same across space and time but there is strong evidence to suggest this is not the case either -- that instead the nature of gravity is fundamentally altered by space-time even as space-time is fundamentally altered by gravity.

 

We often pretend that reality is Euclidean and Aristotelian but we know these are just convenient models. All models are wrong, the question is whether they are still useful.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Brian

[Karl]

You won't understand this response because you spend your energy reinforcing your blinders rather than dissolving them but you actually illustrate your own misunderstanding in this post. I'll just pick the more easily demonstrated for the benefit of the readers of this thread.You state that you "cannot alter gravity" but you do precisely that at every moment and with every particle of your being merely by your presence. This has been understood for hundreds of years and quantitatively documented (it is quite measurable) since the 18th century yet you live in denial of this (as well as many other verifiable aspects of reality, some of which I've pointed out before) because it is at odds with your conception of reality.Every particle in the universe (including every particle in your body) manifests a gravitational field and every particle interacts dynamically with the gravitational fields of every other particle. As particles move in relation to each other, the gravitational field each experience changes -- a constantly changing mélange of overlapping fields rippling through the universe at the speed of light like the ripples on a pond in the rain. This holds true for dust motes, for men riding motorcycles on the surface of the earth, for the thousands (millions?) of rocky and gaseous bodies dancing with each other which we call the solar system, and for the billions of galaxies linked in an ever-changing gravitational net over incomprehensible reaches of space-time.That you would use such a profound misunderstanding as a cornerstone of your argument for how simple it is to answer the question "who am I?" is really quite amusing.

Yet and this is precisely what I'm saying. I do not live in denial of those facts, I stand by them. I am a part of the universe and I have a nature (identity) as do all other existent objects. Every object is acting and interacting according to its nature (identity). I cannot produce something out of nothing, I can only rearrange things by application of physical effort and that's all.

 

The answer to the question 'who am I' is easy. The problem is that you don't like the answer and continue asking in the hope you never have to answer it, or that there will be some significant intrinsic revelation which negates the question. I'm saying it is what it is, if you don't like it then that's too bad, but asking the question a million times won't change it.

[Brian]

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.”

 

Kurt Vonnegut

[Karl]

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;Man got to tell himself he understand.”Kurt Vonnegut

or in your case whom, whom, whom ;-)

[dwai]

because it is not in or of the mind...

Any experience or "state" thereof is of the mind. The "absolute truth" is not a state to attain or an experience to gain, as One already is that. Always. All that is needed is to realize that, and let the mind do what it does without attaching to its contents.

[Brian]

or in your case whom, whom, whom ;-)

Actually, my question has always been "how?"

[blue eyed snake]

If I raise my arms over my head instead of holding them at my side, I am altering the gravitation field you experience -- regardless of whether you can feel the change. If I climb on a ladder, I am altering the gravitational field I experience, as well as the gravitational field the Earth experiences. If I dig a hole, I am also altering gravity. If I swing on a swing, I am constantly altering gravity. To keep things simple (and for practical purposes, since these levels of alteration are generally insignificant), we treat gravity as a steady field on the surface of the Earth but that is, in fact, not the case.

 

As an example, we currently use pairs of satellites to map the planet by measuring the distance between them as they orbit -- as gravity changes, one will speed up or slow down (depending on whether gravity increases or decreases) so the distance between them increases or decreases, and then the other will enter that area and will also speed up or slow down. The distance between the satellites are in constant flux because the gravity they experience is continually changing, and this can be used to measure the planet far below with greater precision than has ever been done -- because gravity is really not a constant.

 

We generally speak of a fixed "gravitational constant" -- of the law of gravity being precisely the same across space and time but there is strong evidence to suggest this is not the case either -- that instead the nature of gravity is fundamentally altered by space-time even as space-time is fundamentally altered by gravity.

 

We often pretend that reality is Euclidean and Aristotelian but we know these are just convenient models. All models are wrong, the question is whether they are still useful.

 

thank you for explaining again...

my head is fuzzy

[blue eyed snake]

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.”

 

Kurt Vonnegut

 

yep, Kurt is nice.

 

but we are better of chopping wood and getting water

[Marblehead]

I don't see how you can have an external contentment. I is I. Everything you think and feel is confined to self. The moment you believe you have permanent contentment is the moment reality can prove you wrong.

 

Seems we are singing different songs.  By external contentment I am speaking to being content with our external conditions, our environment, other people in our life, business complications; things like that.  No contentment?  Make changes if possible so that the discontent is resolved.

 

I don't go by 'if it isn't permanent then it's not real'. Certainly contentment is real. The more certain and confident that you are, the more you gain values and hold them, the greater your contentment becomes. I do not in anyway deny that, it is my philosophy and it is objectivist philosophy. If you have access to everything that you need, if you are comfortable with who you are then you will maximise happiness. Hurrah for that :-)

 

Neither do I.  Yes, contentment is real.  Both with our inner essence (content with our self) and external conditions (the chair seat is too hard so I put a pillow on it).  Yes, both inner and external contentment is based on our values as well as our ego and desires.  Yes, my signature block used to say:  Peace and Happiness.  Happiness is even harder to define than is Contentment.

 

The problem comes with evasion. When surrender becomes the goal. When you try to banish the ego or end the mind in order to feel nothing, to try to be in a permanent kind of anaesthesia. To be unconcerned with reality and desires, to become a mindless zombie with a smile permanently etched on its face. This is the suicider, the Nihlist who has given up and seeks living oblivion.

 

Never Surrender!!!  But wait.  Sometimes surrender is the best course of action.  Not the goal but there is no other choice other than death or sever harm, physical or psychological.  Surrender allows, in most cases, time to plan and take action to change what is unacceptable.

 

I have never suggested banishing ego or desires.  I have suggested reducing both if they are greater than reality can provide for. 

 

Sometimes I think I am mindless but never a zombie.  And I will never allow for being called a nihilist.  I am a Nietzschean, we break away from the herd and find our own path to peace and contentment.  (Sad that Nietzsche never found his.)

 

[Marblehead]

If I raise my arms over my head instead of holding them at my side, I am altering the gravitation field you experience ...

 

Sometimes I can't alter gravity like when I am tired and comfortable seated in a recliner, think of something that requires me to get up, and I just can't do it.  Times like those gravity has me in its firm embrace.

[Marblehead]

I'm sitting here imagining Karl and Brian as forward observers for the artillery what with all the "What, Where, When (and Why and How if possible)".

[Karl]

Actually, my question has always been "how?"

Well then "how do you know what you know" ? Doesn't that presuppose a you who can know it ?

[Karl]

 

I don't see how you can have an external contentment. I is I. Everything you think and feel is confined to self. The moment you believe you have permanent contentment is the moment reality can prove you wrong.

 

Seems we are singing different songs. By external contentment I am speaking to being content with our external conditions, our environment, other people in our life, business complications; things like that. No contentment? Make changes if possible so that the discontent is resolved.

I don't go by 'if it isn't permanent then it's not real'. Certainly contentment is real. The more certain and confident that you are, the more you gain values and hold them, the greater your contentment becomes. I do not in anyway deny that, it is my philosophy and it is objectivist philosophy. If you have access to everything that you need, if you are comfortable with who you are then you will maximise happiness. Hurrah for that :-)

 

Neither do I. Yes, contentment is real. Both with our inner essence (content with our self) and external conditions (the chair seat is too hard so I put a pillow on it). Yes, both inner and external contentment is based on our values as well as our ego and desires. Yes, my signature block used to say: Peace and Happiness. Happiness is even harder to define than is Contentment.

The problem comes with evasion. When surrender becomes the goal. When you try to banish the ego or end the mind in order to feel nothing, to try to be in a permanent kind of anaesthesia. To be unconcerned with reality and desires, to become a mindless zombie with a smile permanently etched on its face. This is the suicider, the Nihlist who has given up and seeks living oblivion.

 

Never Surrender!!! But wait. Sometimes surrender is the best course of action. Not the goal but there is no other choice other than death or sever harm, physical or psychological. Surrender allows, in most cases, time to plan and take action to change what is unacceptable.

 

I have never suggested banishing ego or desires. I have suggested reducing both if they are greater than reality can provide for.

 

Sometimes I think I am mindless but never a zombie. And I will never allow for being called a nihilist. I am a Nietzschean, we break away from the herd and find our own path to peace and contentment. (Sad that Nietzsche never found his.)

 

We aren't singing from a different book. Correct stems from discontentment at how it currently is. Once it is the way you want it then there is no more discontentment regarding those particular things, but a stone in the sock, or a fly in the room, a disturbing racket, or some other thing will always crop up. The fish in your ponds need feeding, they don't feed themselves. You are content as long as you are able to feed them.

 

Yes to surrender when there is no alternative. When your life is no longer a value but brings misery. However, I'm not talking about that kind of surrender. I'm talking of those who surrender before they need to, because a cult tells them to.

 

Nietzsche believed in a malevolent universe, I suspect, like me, you see a benevolent one as long as you are prepared to put the effort in there is an abundance of resource available to utilise in the quest for value.m

Edited July 21, 2016 by Karl

[Marblehead]

We aren't singing from a different book. Correct stems from discontentment at how it currently is. Once it is the way you want it then there is no more discontentment regarding those particular things, but a stone in the sock, or a fly in the room, a disturbing racket, or some other thing will always crop up. The fish in your ponds need feeding, they don't feed themselves. You are content as long as you are able to feed them.

 

Yep, you have grasped what I was speaking to.

 

Yes to surrender when there is no alternative. When your life is no longer a value but brings misery. However, I'm not talking about that kind of surrender. I'm talking of those who surrender before they need to, because a cult tells them to.

 

Good.  I set an extreme point.  (Actually mine.)  And I would agree, to surrender before trying is, IMO, unacceptable.

 

Nietzsche believed in a malevolent universe, I suspect, like me, you see a benevolent one as long as you are prepared to put the effort in there is an abundance of resource available to utilise in the quest for value.m

 

Yeah, thinking on it, I could likely suggest to you that Nietzsche could have been an objectivist.

 

[Brian]

I'm sitting here imagining Karl and Brian as forward observers for the artillery what with all the "What, Where, When (and Why and How if possible)".

Might wanna go with the one with mathematical gungfu...

[Karl]

Might wanna go with the one with mathematical gungfu...

I would concur, Brian is the scientist.

[Karl]

 

We aren't singing from a different book. Correct stems from discontentment at how it currently is. Once it is the way you want it then there is no more discontentment regarding those particular things, but a stone in the sock, or a fly in the room, a disturbing racket, or some other thing will always crop up. The fish in your ponds need feeding, they don't feed themselves. You are content as long as you are able to feed them.

 

Yep, you have grasped what I was speaking to.

Yes to surrender when there is no alternative. When your life is no longer a value but brings misery. However, I'm not talking about that kind of surrender. I'm talking of those who surrender before they need to, because a cult tells them to.

 

Good.  I set an extreme point.  (Actually mine.)  And I would agree, to surrender before trying is, IMO, unacceptable.

Nietzsche believed in a malevolent universe, I suspect, like me, you see a benevolent one as long as you are prepared to put the effort in there is an abundance of resource available to utilise in the quest for value.m

 

Yeah, thinking on it, I could likely suggest to you that Nietzsche could have been an objectivist.

 

He could have been, the early Rand found some of his philosophy attractive. Her own philosophy eventually eclipsed his. Where Nietzsche envisaged the amoral superman to whom everybody should be forced to surrender, Rand envisaged every man as the potential moral hero of his own life interacting voluntarily with others.

 

Nietzsche is therefore anti-reason because he is pro-force. He becomes an inverted collectivist where men must surrender to one man who will determine everything, instead of the traditional collectivist ideology of one man surrendering to the mass of men.

[Brian]

Well then "how do you know what you know" ? Doesn't that presuppose a you who can know it ?

I'm not the one with absolute answers instead of questions. I've noticed, though (and you've demonstrated it again), that your response when your absolutes are shown to be founded on fallacious assumptions is to deny, then deny your denial,then claim that your absolutes somehow already included their exact opposites and that you were therefore correct all along, just like you thought. Quite an ironic display of mental gymnastics -- rather entertaining and sometimes it is hard to resist rattling the cage just to see you deny it exists. That's an attachment I've not yet released. For that reason, I now bow out of this thread. Edited July 21, 2016 by Brian

[Karl]

I'm not the one with absolute answers instead of questions. I've noticed, though (and you've demonstrated it again), that your response when your absolutes are shown to be founded on fallacious assumptions is to deny, then deny your denial,then claim that your absolutes somehow already included their exact opposites and that you were therefore correct all along, just like you thought. Quite an ironic display of mental gymnastics -- rather entertaining and sometimes it is hard to resist rattling the cage just to see you deny it exists. That's an attachment I've not yet released.

We just don't talk in the same terms Brian. I'm a philosopher and you are a scientist. Your familiarity with your particular silo means that you jump on me from some aspect of my concretised epistemology.

 

If I say the sky is blue as a fact, then you will tell me it is my eyes that deceive me, that it is the refractive index of the atmosphere, wavelength of light, cells in my eyes.

 

I say it's an absolute and you go at it trying to tear scientific holes in the philosophical understanding. I already know that the blue in the sky is conceptual and that there are reasons why it appears blue, but it doesn't alter the fact that it is blue. Perception-conception is where you believe I'm doing mental gymnastics. It's not so, but appears there is bog all I can do to communicate it.

 

I don't say that gravity is absolute, I say that the action (nature/ identity) of entities is absolute. So, if I drop an object onto the surface of the earth, it will, negating air pressure, accelerate at the same rate as every other object dropped from the same place and height. I'm not looking for the causes-I call gravity because that is the name of the concept-I don't know where gravity comes from, I only know that entities react and interact according to their nature.

 

I can see that there is a correlation between those objects dropped from the same height, under the same conditions, at the same place. Maybe I effect the experiment, but that is not my province. I can see that at a given distance (relative object/earth) that the object takes a certain time to hit the ground (relative time) and I can see that those particular objects do not vary in the time taken. I do not say that a quark or meson would react the same, those objects have specific identities and relationships as well. I can determine from the two objects that mass does not appear to determine the acceleration. I also know that a heavy object takes more effort to lift to a height than does a lighter one. I can then determine something about the relative weights compared to a constant (in that particular case.).

 

If you and I got together and I did the philosophy whilst you attended the science we would likely discover amazing things, but, alas it isn't to be.

[RiverSnake]

 

 

[Brian]

No, I'm a natural philosopher. I am continually integrating new information from various sources (personal observation, the reported observations of others, disparate emerging theories, etc.) and reformulating my understanding of "what seems to be" based on this --always with the awareness that what seems to be rarely turns out to be but is generally good enough for now. Yes, I sometimes "speak mathematics" because that is one of the languages of the natural philosopher (a particularly powerful and concise language often used as well by the engineer, the accountant, the chemist, the musician, etc.) but fluency in one tongue certainly doesn't restrict a person to just that tongue. Similarly, I am equally comfortable with the understanding that my chair is a illusion composed of probabilistic energy distributions and with sitting in said chair to drink a beer. Notice that this approach -- this worldview -- truly precludes absolutes even if the current level of confidence on a particular topic might be so great as to tolerate occasional absolutist statements ("the sky is blue" is "good enough" even though the sky sometimes appears black or red or yellow or grey, for instance, and it would be more accurate to question whether "the sky" is a concept which holds up to attempts at definition despite "common knowledge" that "it exists"). I am equally comfortable with Newton's concept of gravity as a continuous and constant principle of nature as I am with Einstein's well and the quantum concept of gravity demonstrated by the recent verifications of gravity waves -- and all the paradigm-shifting that is going to entail! -- but I understand at the same time that neither of these models is "The Truth"^TM but merely convenient models to be employed as appropriate for addressing a given situation. Having more tools at hand doesn't guarantee nimble or subtle or useful results but you know what they say happens when all you have is a hammer, right?

 

I think you and I would hit it off splendidly over a beer or three but I would probably make your head hurt before the beer did...

[Brian]

<grin>

 

Saved for future reference!